Infinitesimal
by trollnexus
Summary: Harry is getting really tired of waking up in the middle of the night to kill bugs for Draco.


**Title**: Infinitesimal

**Disclaimer**: Still earning nothing from writing fanfiction, and it's best to keep it that way.

**Pairings**: Harry/Draco, background Ron/Hermione

**Rating**: T

**Warnings**: Violence against bugs? I've got nothing. This is a slice of life, really.

**Summary**: Harry is getting really tired of waking up in the middle of the night to kill bugs for Draco.

**Word Count**: 3,155

**Author's Note**: This was written for Finals Round 1 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 2.

.x.x.

_I dedicate this story to my dad._

_Despite being a 75-year-old man, he still wakes up in the middle of the night to kill bugs for me._

_I love you, Dad._

.x.x.

_Infinitesimal_

"—ry. _Harry_."

In his still-mostly-asleep haze, he only managed to mumble, "Not in the mood, Draco. Maybe later."

The hand on his shoulder continued to shake insistently. "Not that, idiot. Please wake up. _Please_."

Something about the pitch of his voice convinced Harry to turn slightly and open his eyes, though now he felt grumpy about being roused from a perfectly good sleep.

"What?"

Draco was gesturing frantically towards the direction of the armchair in the corner of the room. Harry couldn't tell more than that, though, since he didn't have his glasses on.

"Oh, right, I keep forgetting you're blind. Here." Draco shoved Harry's glasses onto his face, and Harry scowled as he readjusted them to rest comfortably on his ears.

As he blinked, the armchair area came into focus, and the longer he stared, the clearer the situation became.

"You woke me up because of _that_?"

Above the chair, there was a cockroach crawling peacefully up the wall. It was about the size of a jellybean.

"I can't prepare my case notes with—with that _thing_ inhabiting my study space!"

Harry sighed and dropped his head back onto the pillow. "Why don't you just kill it, then? Don't tell me you have scruples about killing _bugs_, of all things." (He felt quietly proud of himself for using the word "scruples" correctly. He had learned it from Shacklebolt.)

Draco shook his head. "I can't. What if I try to hit it and I miss? That thing _flies_. It'll fly right at my face and get revenge for even attempting to kill it."

"It's a cockroach. What's it going to do to you? It doesn't even sting."

"I'm not so sure it's a roach. It looks _weird_. Anyway, I don't want to try and miss."

Harry sighed again. From the way Draco kept shifting from foot to foot and glaring at him with bulging eyes, Harry knew he wasn't going to get any more sleep until he did something about the bug. Draco got really tetchy when he couldn't do his work; he always demanded a _perfect _environment, which was probably why he was even causing trouble for Harry at—he pulled his wand out from under the pillow and cast a _Tempus—_three in the morning.

Without wasting any more time on argument, he got out of bed and shuffled towards the offending insect, raising his wand.

"No!" Draco quickly grabbed Harry's wrist, interrupting his wand movement.

Harry glanced at Draco's fingers clamped around his wrist and sighed yet again. In a different context, this wrist-grabbing thing would have been really enticing, but right now it was just annoying.

"What now, Draco?"

"Don't cast a spell at it! If you miss, you'll ruin the wallpaper!"

"Oh, for the love of—" He yanked his arm out of Draco's grip. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Just—I don't know! Do it physically!"

Harry shook his head and looked around the room for an object to use. Unfortunately, Draco was rather attached to all the objects in this room; he couldn't see himself getting away with dirtying any of them for this task. Law books, trinkets from past travels, that expensive vase they had for no particular reason…nope, Harry didn't dare to touch any of it.

With no other choice, Harry hit it with his hand.

"Urgh! Harry, that is _disgusting_! I cannot believe you would—"

Harry ignored him and checked his hand. "I got it. Now you can stop whinging."

Draco tentatively peered closer. "Are you sure about that? Really sure? As in..._sure_ sure?"

Feeling just the slightest bit sadistic after being forced to wake up for such a stupid reason, Harry waved his hand closer to Draco, displaying the mangled insect body in all its glory.

Draco shrieked and raised his wand as if to hex him, and Harry cackled as he went to the loo to wash his hands.

.x.x.

Unfortunately, that was not the last roach they'd see.

Over the course of a month, Harry found himself losing sleep at least twice a week to the sound of Draco's insistent whinging.

"Draco, you're a prosecutor," he grumbled as he ruthlessly hit the newest roach with the Auror training manual. "You eat criminals for breakfast. Why can't you—"

As he was saying this, though, he looked over and saw Draco's reddening cheeks as he resolutely glared at his feet, refusing to even look in the general direction of the roach.

Harry immediately shut up and focussed on disposing of the blasted insect. The man had been through a lot. Sometimes Harry suspected that the main reason Draco pored over his case notes into the wee hours of the morning was because he was scared to sleep and have yet another nightmare about Voldemort or his Aunt Bellatrix. Honestly, it was kind of nice to see Draco freaking out about something so mundane instead.

He cast a cleaning charm on the manual and put it back on the shelf. When he turned around, he found Draco peacefully ensconced in his favourite armchair again, scribbling in the margins of his parchment with the fancy quill Harry had once bought him on a whim.

He smiled a little and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over himself. A sight like that was worth it.

He really should look into solving the roach problem, though. How were they even getting in?

Shaking his head, he decided to close his eyes and deal with it after the sun came up.

.x.x.

It was a slow day at work, so Harry decided to pop into Hermione's office and see if she was available for lunch. It was important to do this every so often, because when left to her own devices, Hermione tended to just nibble on some trail mix and bury herself in parchment. Ron checked in at times, but whenever there was a really intriguing case, he too would get wrapped up in his work, though at least he remembered to order takeout for himself when this happened.

Harry worked hard, too, but he also liked to take a lot of breaks, because focus had never been his forte. Hermione was obsessed with everything and Ron spent a lot of time planning out his next strategic move (while stuffing his face, admittedly), but at the end of the day Harry only did what needed to be done. No more, no less.

And what needed to be done for today was making sure his best friend ate a square meal and perhaps getting some advice on pest removal while he was at it.

He gave a cursory knock on her open door just to get her attention.

She looked up from her stack and blinked rapidly. "Harry! Is it lunchtime already?"

"Yes. Put the quill down, Hermione."

"In a second," she said, waving him off. "I just need to finish this sentence."

"I'll be generous and give you _five_ seconds. One…two…three…"

She finished her sentence, however, and stood up before he even started to say "four."

He smiled. "Great. Let's go to the usual place."

"Wait." She grabbed his shoulder before he could move into the hallway. "You have the look on your face."

"What look?"

She gestured vaguely. "You know. The look you have when you need something from me."

"Hermione. I don't _need_ anything; I just want to—"

"Harry, let's just discuss it now while I'm still in work mode. I don't need you ruining lunch with your nervous energy. What is it?"

He wanted to retort that she was _always_ in work mode, but she had a point; it's not like the question was very embarrassing or anything. "Well, I wanted—"

She held up her hand. "Oh! No, let me guess. You came across a mysterious symbol in your most recent Auror case and you need my help interpreting it."

"Er, no. The most recent Auror case was just some bloke causing a drunken disturbance in a Muggle bar. No mystery _there_."

"Oh, I know! You want advice on how to block out Howlers. I've been waiting for you to ask. It's simple, really, you just—"

"No, I already took care of that on my own; it was necessary, considering the hate mail Draco gets from families of those who end up in prision."

She frowned. "Oh. Hm. No, don't tell me! I've got it. You want"—she heaved a sigh—"you want love advice, don't you?"

"Say what now?"

"Everyone's been coming to me for love advice lately. I don't know why. Just the other day, Neville was fretting at me because Hannah seemed to be a little under the weather these days. Well, I told him—"

"No! I don't need love advice. Draco and I are doing just fine."

"You sure? You can tell me anything, you know. I hear I'm a great agony aunt."

Harry shook his head. "No, no, I'm fine. Really, I am. All I wanted was advice on how to get rid of bugs."

She furrowed her brows. "Bugs? Magical or Muggle?"

"Just bugs in general. They keep getting into my house somehow, and I don't know how to stop them."

She suddenly smiled. "I've got just the thing, then. It's just a matter of wards, really. I don't know how you've survived this far without knowing the proper wards for this situation."

He shrugged. "I've been so preoccupied with keeping out the human pests that I didn't think about the other sort. I never thought it'd be an issue, anyway."

"Well, it's the little things in life," she said abstractedly as she rummaged through her bookshelves. "Where did I put it? I hope it's not at home—ah! There we go."

She pressed a medium-sized tome into his hands and he gratefully slipped it into the expandable pocket of his robes without bothering to look at the title. He trusted her.

"Now that that's settled, can we finally go to lunch, Hermione? I'm starving."

"Sure." She waved her wand at her desk, and it seemed to glow orange for a second. He knew without asking that it was a protective charm for her paperwork. He doubted anyone would want to touch it, really, but he couldn't complain about her being cautious.

"By the by," she asked as they headed towards the Apparition point, "what sort of pests have been bothering you?"

"Er, wasps," he lied. For some reason, he felt like preserving Draco's manly pride, even though there was no way she'd infer that Draco was the one who was freaking out about the bugs. Then he felt silly for lying, so he covered up his embarrassment by asking, "Are there really specific wards for this?"

"Gods, yes," she replied. "It was one of the first things I researched when Ron and I bought a house together. Can you just _imagine_ the havoc it would cause if Ron found a spider in the shower?"

Harry couldn't help but imagine it. The image of Ron screaming and flailing as he stumbled out of the loo, wet and covered in suds, was too much, and his hearty laughter echoed even after he had already Disapparated.

.x.x.

It was almost like a dance, he mused as he twirled his wand around the perimeter of their home, incanting very carefully. The tricky part about these ward spells was that if you got even one syllable incorrect, you ended up keeping the wrong things out and letting the wrong things in. He had to revise his earlier statement about his inability to focus; when it came to spells, he could focus just fine.

When he reached the last corner and wrapped up the spell, he stepped back and admired his handiwork. If he squinted and concentrated hard enough, he could hear the subtle hum of the new wards, a sound which would eventually fade until something happened to trigger it. Thankfully one of the features of the wards was a repellent quality that made bugs unwilling to go near them in the first place, so at least he didn't have to hear the wards constantly twanging from contact.

As he turned to go back into the house, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he saw Draco standing behind him.

"Draco! What are you doing here? I thought you were taking a nap."

"I just wanted to see what you were doing. What kind of wards are these? I thought we were already armed to the teeth. Did something happen?"

"Just wards to keep out the insects. Now you can do your work uninterrupted."

"Ah. I see."

Harry frowned as Draco walked away. He thought he would be happy to hear about this added protection or at least indifferent. Instead, he had seemed…disappointed?

It made no sense at all.

.x.x.

"Harry?"

This time, Harry had grown so used to waking up to the sound of Draco's summons that he leapt out of bed immediately, grabbing his wand with one hand and putting on his glasses with the other.

"Draco? What is it? Don't tell me there's a bug again. I could have _sworn_ I did those wards perfectly."

Draco was sitting at the edge of the bed, though, and there wasn't a single parchment in sight, so he definitely hadn't been working tonight. A cursory look around the room did not reveal a single roach.

"No, Harry, it's not that."

"Then what is it? Don't tell me…do you _miss_ the roaches?"

"No! Don't be ridiculous; I wouldn't miss those bastards even if they were gone a thousand years."

"Then what is it?" He walked over and sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He didn't care that this was an uncharacteristically corny gesture for him; he suddenly had the feeling that this whole thing had been about more than just roaches.

"I…urgh, I feel ridiculous. Forget it. Go back to sleep."

Harry tightened his grip, however. "You might as well tell me. I can't go back to sleep with an unanswered question, and you know how grumpy I get when I don't get enough sleep."

Draco grimaced. "I do know that."

"Well? I'm waiting."

He sighed and leaned his head against Harry's. "I kind of liked seeing you kill the roaches. Now I won't get to see that anymore."

"Were you…attached to that sight?"

"I knew it. This was every bit as weird as I thought it'd be. Forget it." Draco tried to turn away, but Harry wouldn't let him.

"No, no, I'm listening. Go on."

"Yes, I liked the sight, okay? It was nice seeing you do something for me."

Harry frowned. "Do I not do things for you anymore? Is that it?"

"No, not exactly. It's…I guess when we first started dating, we did lots of things for each other. Opening doors, cooking meals, buying random gifts whenever we feel like it. I still use the quill you bought me, you know."

"I know. I saw. So what are you trying to say? We lack spontaneity? Consideration?"

Draco shook his head helplessly, clearly frustrated that he wasn't finding the right words. "It's not that. What I mean to say is that we've gotten so busy that we rarely do these things for each other anymore. The love and affection are still there, yes, but we're barely in touch. So when you killed the roaches for me, I felt…nostalgic? Maybe that's the word for it."

Harry pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I think I understand a little better. But what can we do? We can't go back to the past, and it would be pointless to pretend. Did you want to stay in the honeymoon stage forever? A relationship has to change over time. Doesn't have to be bad. We're just…evolving? I think that's the word for _that_."

Draco shrugged. "I don't know. What do we do, Harry? Now that the drama is over, now that we're together and supposed to be living happily ever after, what's left? Was the last enemy to destroy simply a cockroach? It feels rather anticlimactic."

Harry rubbed his temples. He really wished he was running on a full night of sleep. This conversation was giving him a headache. _It's the little things in life_, Hermione had said.

"After all the struggle and all the suffering, are you really upset that life is _normal_?"

"Maybe I am, Harry. Maybe I don't know how to function now that the only monsters are in my dreams. We grew up with the embodiment of _evil_, for Merlin's sake. Everything just pales in comparison."

Harry snorted. "Evil always exists, Draco. That's why we both have jobs."

Draco didn't respond, instead staring listlessly at the painting on the wall across from them. Harry didn't bother looking at the painting, though, since he knew the depicted landscape wasn't going to change anytime soon.

"I mean it, Draco. Evil always exists. In many ways and forms. You and I will always have enemies. They might not make dramatic speeches or start wars all the time, but they're there, in the shadows, waiting for one of us to slip up. Even if we didn't have enemies, it is our job to take care of other people's enemies, enemies of society as a whole. Alright, so there's not much drama in our personal lives right now. Can you say the same about the courtroom?"

Draco smiled sardonically. "No. Just last week, the defendant tried to hex me for laying out the facts, forgetting that they had taken away his wand. He looked preposterous, waving his empty hand impotently in my direction."

"Now _there's_ a cockroach if I've ever heard of one. See, Draco? It's not like our lives are boring. Work is more than enough to keep us on our toes. Don't you like having a drama-free haven here at home?"

He nodded. "You're right. I'm probably just overreacting."

"Are you bored of us, Draco? Is that it? I know we haven't been arguing lately. Does that make you _sad_, you wanker?"

Draco playfully shoved at him, but his shove was ineffectual, seeing as Harry still had his arm wrapped around him. "I could never be bored. I think I'm just overthinking things, getting these silly notions into my head. I'm starting to remind myself of _Longbottom_, and I think that's the worst part."

Harry made a face, and they both laughed. "Well, do you feel better now?"

Draco nodded. "Yes. Everything seems ridiculous once you've voiced them out loud to someone else."

"Good. Then let's sleep."

Once they settled in, Harry hugged him from behind, and it wasn't long until he heard Draco's gentle, steady breathing.

His last thought before he fell asleep was that it was nice to spoon him again. He hadn't realised it, but they hadn't spooned in a long time.

Maybe he could understand what Draco meant by nostalgia.


End file.
